The Room Two: room-based mystery thriller

The Room Two is the long-awaited follow-up to the immensely popular original, The Room. Where the original had you manipulating objects on a table, the gameplay of The Room Two better fits its title: in the sequel you find yourself in various rooms that open up more as you complete various puzzles. You follow clues left by a mysterious scientist known only as 'AS' and attempt to solve physical puzzles and mysterious riddles to get closer to the ultimate truth. How convincing the mystery is you'll find out in today's review.

Features & Use

If you've played the original game you'll be in familiar territory, albeit with a wider scope for the puzzles you must solve. If you've never played The Room, the game is a physical puzzler. This means you are presented with a beautifully rendered 3D environment with objects and clues hidden in it. Your job is to notice details, fit clues together, collect objects, unlock riddles and progress through the game by ''figuring out'' various objects, environments and interactions.

Straight away, you'll notice that The Room Two is even better than the original graphically, and the environments are richer and more detailed. You'll repeatedly find yourself in a space with various objects in it, and your job is to look around closely at both the environment and the other objects in the room in order to piece the particular puzzle together. Sometimes you need to unlock one part to open up a new part of the room, only to later return to complete follow-up puzzles on previously explored tables or objects. In this sequel, you'll interact with the whole room, not just an object on a table.

At various points throughout each room you'll uncover letters from a scientist who, while investigating the power of the ''Null,'' mysteriously vanished. These letters usually serve to set the scene more than anything, but occasionally they contain cryptic clues or essential hints to solve the various riddles you'll encounter. The whole adventure is made even more complex when you add a special lens that allows you to see things in a whole different way – quite often when you're stuck on something, using this lens will show you what to do next. Or at least show you something that was previously hidden.

As you progress through the game you'll pass through some very different environments, from a crypt, a ship, a temple, a seance room and more I won't tell you about because I don't want to give anything away! But suffice to say that each environment is equally as atmospheric and perfectly presented as the last. Each time you complete the puzzles in a room you'll be swept up by the mystical power of the Null and transported to an entirely new location, although the ambient sense of mystery and darkness follow you everywhere.

Everything about The Room two is moody, gloomy, atmospheric and utterly engaging. It is absolutely the kind of game you will install and play right through on the first attempt. While this may make it seem like a one-night-only affair (because you simply have to play it at night in the dark!), it is still a very worthy investment, because you'll get just as much fun, immersion and enjoyment out of The Room Two as you would a night at the cinema.

Screen & Controls

Navigating is quite simple and intuitive: you swipe to look around the room and double-tap to focus on a particular object (like a table or chest) and again to focus closely on a particular part of that object. You can move around in the close-up view, and this is often necessary to uncover a clue or irregularity that will lead you towards what you must do. You can press buttons, slide locks and so forth and reverse pinch to zoom back out. Hints are available, but it is much more rewarding to stick it out, although some parts of the game are serious head-scratchers!

Everything about The Room Two is cinematic and the initial menu is presented much like a DVD menu. You can set up different profiles, start a game or select a particular chapter to replay (once you've completed it). Options include enabling hints, changing the language or advanced options related to your device and graphics setup. There's six different levels, although one is so short it doesn't really count. I hope there will be an Epilogue release for The Room Two as there was with the original.

Speed & Stability

The Room Two worked without a glitch, crash or freeze. It only takes a few hours to play through the entire game, but The Room Two handled that with ease. This is a good thing, because you get so involved in the game that a force close would ruin the atmosphere entirely. Despite being quite heavy graphically, the gameplay was always smooth and stable.

Price/Performance Ratio

While The Room Two is not cheap at $2.99 for a game that doesn't have a whole lot of replay value, as I said above, the experience is so enjoyable and engrossing that it's still one of the best games I've ever bought. You can, of course, create multiple player profiles for your friends and family and share the love around too, so that $2.99 will stretch further than you think, and when a game is this well done it's worth supporting the developers.

Final verdict

The Room Two is a mesmerizing and highly atmospheric 3D puzzle game that will capture your attention right from the beginning, whether you've played the original before or not. The cinematic graphics are outstanding and the moody feel of the game is very engaging. The puzzles are interesting and sometimes quite tricky, although if you are familiar with the genre some may seem a little obvious and easy. The game may not have a lot of replay value, but it offers more than enough entertainment on the first run through to make it a worthwhile purchase. With any luck, additional levels will be added at some point in the future.